ANNUAL AWARDS FOR INITIATIVES TO IMPROVE UNITED NATIONS EFFICIENCY PRESENTED AT HEADQUARTERS CEREMONY TO 33 STAFF MEMBERS
Press Release
ORG/1276
ANNUAL AWARDS FOR INITIATIVES TO IMPROVE UNITED NATIONS EFFICIENCY PRESENTED AT HEADQUARTERS CEREMONY TO 33 STAFF MEMBERS
19981218 Deputy Secretary-General Lauds 1998 'UN21' Winners, Says Key to Reform of Organization Rests with Staff ContributionsNEW YORK, 17 December -- The annual awards to United Nations personnel for introducing innovative improvements in their area of work were presented at Headquarters today by Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette. The honours -- known as the UN21 Awards, designed to recognize contributions to enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the Organization -- went this year to three teams comprising a total of 33 staff members.
The Deputy Secretary-General extended warm appreciation and thanks to the recipients, emphasizing that the key to the successful streamlining of the United Nations administration was the staff members of the Organization. She encouraged all staff members throughout the Organization to continue their efforts, to ensure that the reform initiatives of the Secretary-General were a success.
Joseph E. Connor, Under-Secretary-General for Management, mentioned the number of nominations from whom the award winners were chosen: nine teams, consisting of 159 staff members, plus 14 individual nominations, received from all parts of the Organization. He said the outstanding achievements of the nominees made the work of the Advisory Panel extremely difficult. The Chairman of the panel, Toshiyuki Niwa, Assistant Secretary-General for Central Support Services, said the awards were based on three criteria: introduction of outstanding improvement or innovative change; increase in efficiency or effectiveness of the Organization; and achievement of concrete results.
Ms. Fréchette, on behalf of the Secretary-General, then presented each winner with a certificate and their UN21 pins.
The first award was made to a team from the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, Department of Public Information (DPI), who had worked on the design and implementation of a customized electronic information dissemination service. The team comprised: Mary F. Cherif, Anna Banchieri, Nikolai Baskakov, Armando Da Silva, Alissar Khoury, Hawa Knuckles, Christina Lochow, Anatoli Sidorenko and Lucine Tegnazian.
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The second award was given to the Technological Innovations Working Group from the Department of General Assembly Affairs and Conference Services. This group developed the functional and technical specifications for a translator workstation, which has led to improvements in translation. The group, supported by the Information Technology Services Division, comprised: Khidir Abdel-Razig, Kester Branford, Pinwang Chao, Constantine Danilevsky, Marie-Claude Duytschaever, Harald Hille, David Kamen, Elke Lohan, Susana Maggi, Alexei Merezhko, Eduardo Bauza Mercere, Mohamed Jendoubi, Nikolai Pakhomov, Jose Maria Perazzo, Alexandre Soloviev, Isabelle Tauziet, Sylvie Trevoux, Gaojing Xu and Yasunobu Ishigami.
The third award was presented to a team from the Department of General Assembly Affairs and Conference Services for their efforts in the automation of labels and signs creation in the Distribution Section. This team designed a computer programme which makes it possible to print labels and signs to identify the category, title and location of publications in the central storage area which, in the past, was done manually. The programme has resulted in a more efficient and reliable operation, and yielded savings in time and money. The winners were: Clive Deane, San Htoo, Pedro Lobo, Ferdinand Umahon and Elpidio Hermoso.
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